Episode 108 – THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

If you notice a slight lack of polish with this episode, I do beg your forgiveness.

You see, every once in a while I need to take the ball and step on to the mound on short rest. This was one of those weeks thanks to a film’s weird release pattern, and my guest’s busy schedule, “short rest” became recording, editing, and posting all on one day. Thus, a decision was made to post the show a little more raw than usual. With the exception of a few coughs and pauses, what you hear in this episode is the show as it happened.

Not that such a decision begs disclaimer or apology – far from it actually! I just know that I can hear the slightest change in tone with this episode, and if I can hear it…you might too. The guest I wanted for this episode is a busy chap, and if getting a bit of his precious time meant for a whole day dedicated to the show, then so be it. I’m still happy with how it turned out, even if it’s a little less minty-fresh than I’ve come accustomed to.

You didn’t think there was a disenfranchisement theme and you thought the film was sweet and disposable like one of Mendel’s trifles Ryan?

One of the two main characters was told he was now stateless early on in the film after a country was occupied, a disenfranchisement theme currently relevant to Crimean Tartars and Ukranians.

A film where one of the two main characters was thus disenfranchised, had his family killed in an uprising, who had been tortured, who was beaten up by Nazi thugs twice and had his best friend murdered by said Nazi thugs, and where the Einsatzgruppen turned up at the end to murder all the Jews, Gypsies etc is not a film that is sweet and disposable to me.

I had made a note to bring up the sad look to the past – both in BUDAPEST, and especially in NINOTCHKA. This film definitely has a way of mourning the way Europe was dragged kicking-and-screaming into the 20th century…much the same way so many of Lubitsch’s films do.

You raise a good point sir, and it’s given me something to look for on rewatch – which should be happening any day now!